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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Urbanization Alters Communities Of Flying Arthropods In Parks And Gardens Of A Medium-Sized City, Edward Lagucki, Justin D. Burdine, Kevin E. Mccluney
Urbanization Alters Communities Of Flying Arthropods In Parks And Gardens Of A Medium-Sized City, Edward Lagucki, Justin D. Burdine, Kevin E. Mccluney
Biological Sciences Faculty Publications
Urbanization transforms undeveloped landscapes into built environments, causing changes in communities and ecological processes. Flying arthropods play important roles in these processes as pollinators, decomposers, and predators, and can be important in structuring food webs. The goal of this study was to identify associations between urbanization and the composition of communities of flying (and floating) arthropods within gardens and parks in a medium-sized mesic city. We predicted that flying arthropod abundance and diversity would respond strongly to percent impervious surface and distance to city center, measurements of urbanization. Flying arthropods were sampled from 30 gardens and parks along an urbanization …
Variation In Arthropod Hydration Across Us Cities With Distinct Climate, Kevin E. Mccluney, Justin D. Burdine, Steven D. Frank
Variation In Arthropod Hydration Across Us Cities With Distinct Climate, Kevin E. Mccluney, Justin D. Burdine, Steven D. Frank
Biological Sciences Faculty Publications
Increasing evidence suggests that altered environmental conditions within cities (e.g. temperature) can have strong effects on the biology and ecology of animals. Moreover, multiple abiotic (e.g. soil moisture, distributions of water bodies) and biotic factors (e.g. plant and animal communities) may be more similar among cities in distinct climate regions as compared to outside cities. But the mechanisms behind these patterns are unclear. We suggest that animal physiological condition responds to urbanization and may become more similar with urbanization among cities. As a first attempt at assessing this possibility, we measured hydration (water content) of field-collected arthropods, across variation in …
Implications Of Animal Water Balance For Terrestrial Food Webs, Kevin E. Mccluney
Implications Of Animal Water Balance For Terrestrial Food Webs, Kevin E. Mccluney
Biological Sciences Faculty Publications
Recent research has documented shifts in per capita trophic interactions and food webs in response to changes in environmental moisture, from the top-down (consumers to plants), rather than solely bottom-up (plants to consumers). These responses may be predictable from effects of physiological, behavioral, and ecological traits on animal water balance, although predictions could be modified by energy or nutrient requirements, the risk of predation, population-level responses, and bottom-up effects. Relatively little work has explicitly explored food web effects of changes in animal water balance, despite the likelihood of widespread relevance, including during periodic droughts in mesic locations, where taxa may …